Madam Speaker, I am here tonight to follow up on a question that I asked the Minister of Justice back in June:
...violent crime has risen 32% since the Liberals formed government in 2015.
This is a fact across all of Canada, including in my riding where I am reading local headlines, titled “Arrested again” for “participation in a criminal organization”, “Failure to comply with a probation order”, “Eleven counts of knowledge of possession of a firearm while prohibited”, “Two counts of disobeying a court order” and “Two counts of breach of a weapons prohibition”.
...When will they repeal their soft-on-crime policies?
I am sorry. That was a question I asked the government in 2022.
Let me get to the right question. I asked this of the government:
...[the government] talked about and highlighted the need for our current bail system to be improved. Changes need to happen.
I have just two simple questions for [the government]. Does [the government] agree this is an urgent problem? How much time is realistic to address this urgent problem and make necessary changes to our bail system in Canada?
Here is the answer I got from the government:
No one piece of legislation is going to fix the issue of bail reform in our country. As I was trying to say, this is a multi-faceted problem. [The government needs] to engage the provincial, territorial and regional governments, and [it needs] to ensure they have the support they need to administer justice.
Over the past seven years...[the Liberal government has] been slowly putting in place legislation that is helping to improve the bail system and the bail regime in Canada....
My apologies. That was a question I asked in February 2023.
The actual question I asked in June was this:
...crime has been rising in my riding since the Liberals formed government, and justice is too often delayed for victims. According to the latest Owen Sound Police Service's annual report, violent crimes are up 14.6%. My communities are worried. To make matters worse, more than 10% of the cases are now exceeding the Jordan limit, delaying justice further.
When will the Liberal government reverse its soft-on-crime legislation and adopt a common-sense plan to keep violent offenders behind bars and ensure victims and their families get the justice they deserve?
The response I got from the Minister of Justice at the time is that he seemed to think it was all “good news”, that the Liberals were going to advance reform policies to “stiffen bail proceedings” and would “adopt more serious sentences for violent repeat offenders”. He said we could expect this later this calendar year. That answer was not good enough.
This has been an urgent problem, as I have highlighted. I am just one of many Conservative MPs who have been raising this question over the last four years. It is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed.
I followed up with the parliamentary secretary just last week and asked the same question about this “mythical bail reform bill that is going to come out this fall”. I asked whether fall is before December 12 and whether we could nail that down. The parliamentary secretary refused to answer the question. He just said it would be out this fall.
All I am looking for is clarity as to when this fall the government will table this urgently needed bail reform legislation. I just want a time frame, as it takes time to get legislation through the parliamentary system. The track record of the Liberal government is not great for getting legislation right the first time, so I am confident it is going to require amendments and improvements so that it works.
Can the House expect this bail reform tomorrow, next week or before the end of November, or will the government be tabling it on December 12, the last day of the fall session?